First off - I'm sorry for the delay between posts, been incredibly hard to find time to get online.
Now, the match. I'm eager to go straight to refuting points from Leo’s reply, but before I dive into the back-and-forth, I want to draw attention to some glaring holes in Leo’s opening post.
Leo’s Prep is Totally Whack
Kids still say ‘whack’ right?
Look, I think Leo wanted to make his prep seem simple and therefore without holes or problems, but there are a couple obvious, and problematic issues:
i instantly raise full powered gravimetric shields (say with a diameter of 15'😉 and full psi shields. then nico casts 2 spells: OPAQUE, and REBOUND, then i am transported to the battlefield.
Shields? Not a big deal right now, though we’ll get into shield-specific issues in a moment.
Spells? Well…
[list=1][*]Problem: Leo doesn’t know what this spell will do.
Nico Minoru is an… unpredictable spellcaster.
All spells (sans teleportation/flight) require spell words, and spell words can’t be used more than once, so Nico frequently gets creative:
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Runaways/CW-YoungAvengersRunaways2-009.jpg
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/marvelkris/Runaways/CW-YoungAvengersRunaways2-012.jpg
In these scans, Nico casts a spell “Get lost!”, hoping it will BFR her opponent, and instead it blinds them, leaving them ‘lost’. She then says:
”I was hoping that spell would send you to Mars or something, but with the Staff of One I have to take what it gives me…”
The takeaway here is that Nico has no effing guarantee what the effects of her spells will be. Digi already brought this up in the previous match, and Leo handwaved it away by referencing the upgrade that Nico got, but lets take a closer look at the evidence of this upgrade:
http://s1151.photobucket.com/user/sclements1/media/thunderstruckrecycle-1.jpg.html
http://s1151.photobucket.com/user/sclements1/media/dirtnap-1.jpg.html
“Thunderstruck”, “Recycle”, “Dirtnap”… all still very literal definitions that directly describe the spell effect.
Now, what Leo is trying to do in prep is cast a spell – “Rebound!” – and claim that it gets translated into a mental booby trap spell, because a completely different character (an extra dimensional, techno-genius, magical ninja) once cast a spell that he would like to use in this match.
He doesn’t have Spiral though, he has Nico Minoru, who casts super literal spells with no guarantee of their effect. Nico Minoru, who has never cast a spell for psychic defense, much less a booby trap designed to ensnare an omega telepath.
In his opening prep, Leo is going to be sent flying away from his own shield/helmet/Worldmind as he ‘rebounds’ off of it.
[*]Problem: No limits fallacy, anyone?
I mentioned that Nico has never attempted to use spell casting for psychic effect.
Following that line of thought, why on earth would we assume that she could create a trap sophisticated enough to harm an omega telepath? This particular omega telepath has experience evading the psychic traps of Shadow King and Cassandra Nova. Even if Nico got an upgrade recently, that’s no substitute for experience in this field.
[*]Problem: Nico is out of the equation
This is just helpful for me, so I want to dwell on it for a moment:
If Leo’s character is blinded and relying on Worldmind, then Nico is going to be helpless to know what spell to cast.
Worldmind, with utterly zero experience with the Staff of One, won’t be able to help her either, and certainly won’t be able to cast/aim spells for her.
This is now a two-on-one battle, and all Nico has done is hinder her team.
[*]Problem: CIS
Originally posted by leonidas
(1) [b]strategy: he went invisible
problems: i was never relying on sight. [/b]
Oh, my mistake.
You're relying on blinding yourself, and listening to Worldmind say: "blind asian girl! It is critical that you pay attention at this time!."
Then, as your scans show, verbally feeding Rich information. I appreciate that Worldmind has, in the past, fed information directly to Rich's cerebellum, but:
a) wasn't covered in prep
which is mostly important because...
Self or Characters: We're drafting the characters, not granting ourselves the powers. So CIS is on the table.
b) CIS.
Your scans that 'prove' Worldmind's senses also show Worldmind feeding Rich information through conversation, and those came AFTER the scans of directly tapping into Rich's cerebellum.
This means Worldmind's tendency is not to tap into Rich’s cerebellum, but rather to verbally instruct Nova, and this is backed up by every single instance of “It is critical that you pay attention!”. Obviously Rich would be a vastly superior combatant if Worldmind always fed him information directly, rather than took the time to verbalize the location of each target, so we can only attribute this to Character Induced Stupidity.
CIS, for this tournament, is on the table, and it is going to work against you here. You've blinded yourself and you're relying on a robot giving you verbal cues to target a hologram.
I submit that, even if judges believe that Nova/Worldmind would resort to direct cerebral interface, the evidence suggests that it wouldn’t be their default strategy, meaning it’s a plan they would need to discuss and adopt… after the match starts.
I further submit, it is at least equally likely that, instead of resorting to flying blind with Worldmind’s assistance, Nova simply lowers his opaque shields so that he can try to see. Again, judges, this is a matter of CIS- Leo purposefully blinded his own character, failed to set him up with the resources to navigate, and started the match. At this point the match is in Nova and Nico’s unlikely hands.
[/list]
Important takeaways from Leo’s prep:
[list][*]Neither Leo, nor Nico Minoru, has any guarantee over the exact effect, or effectiveness, of her spells
[*]Nico has never cast a spell remotely similar to the exotic spell that Leo is copping from Spiral
[*]Without sight, Nico/Staff of One is useless
[*]Nova, Nico, and Worldmind, are inhibited by CIS that will slow them down from the start of the match, and may result in flying shield-less [/list]
OK, let’s move on from Leo’s prep to get into the nitty gritty back and forth.
This is not the Psychadelic that you’re looking for…
Leo does a lot of handwaving to insist that Worldmind can see past my multiple layers of stealth, but the scans do little to support his stance:
[list][*]Psylocke’s Stealth
b) then he adds tk invisibility which has OTHER problems: (a) the version of psylocke he has chosen ('omega' style tp) also doesn't HAVE her old tk abilities. she has tk, but NOT to the same extent. he should be using tk feats from HIS version.
The only power change Psylocke experienced was gaining telepathy. She's said to now share her psi power between her abilities, but her psi power has grown to be Omega class – more powerful than ever before -, and she retains all her previous experience. Judges, if this point concerns you, remember: I don’t need to replicate the feat of Psylocke showing molecular invisibility, because the crux of my stealth is still Dr. Light, who has fooled Superman on multiple occasions. Psylocke, if she feels like showing off, has experience and psychic ability to bolster that stealth even further.
[*]Dr. Light’s Invisibility and Holograms
(d) using tk to make her physical form invisible is one thing--now she is ENERGY! so we assume that she can now make ENERGY invisible?? dubious doesn't BEGIN to describe my thoughts regarding THAT idea..... (e) he'd STILL leave some trail to follow
First of all: I never stated in my prep that I would become an energy form. That only happens once Worldmind is fixated on my hologram. I’m starting cloaked, with the same cloak that fools Superman.
Second: You don't explain why an energy form would be any harder to stealth than a human form. You don't need to change your own composition, you need to fool the detection devices, and those work according to the same principle regardless of which form my character takes.
More importantly: Dr. Light boasts that he easily fools Superman with holograms.
…so Dr Light has casually slipped past Superman twice, both with invisibility and holograms.
Superman can see ‘the whole spectrum’: microscopic, chemical, x-ray, auditory, ultrasonic, magnetic, photonic
Leo can spout about Worldmind all he likes, but without feats of Worldmind scanning and detecting hidden objects, there’s no reason to believe that he would fare any better against my invisibility and holograms than Superman.
[/list]
Continued in next post...
